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Battle of the Rio Hondo
The Battle of the Rio Hondo was, along with the battles of Narbona Pass and White Rock, one of the largest defeats that Caesar's Legion suffered in their conquest of New Mexico. Like the remnants of the Union of the Ute and Navajo Nations at Narbona Pass, the residents of settlement of The Valley, a small logging village in the remains of the pre-war Taos Ski Valley, used guerilla tactics and the mountainous terrain to negate the Legion's advantage in numbers. The battle is most famous an engineered collapse of a scree slope overlooking the only pre-war road into the valley which, in addition to causing the majority of the Legion casualties in the battle, also dammed the Rio Hondo, creating a small lake that would become known as "Dynamite Lake". Background After the Great War of 2077, the area around Taos, New Mexico effectively was reduced to a group of independent city states which faired better than more populated areas of the country, with power and water systems surviving. When the bombs fell, the Taos Ski Valley, located in the mountains northeast of the town of Taos, was early in its open season. Both the town and ski valley were far from any nuclear blasts, and thus survived. When hearing of the news of the war, many of the visitors either left the valley in hopes of finding out what happened to their loved ones, or else committed suicide, many of them intentionally skiing off cliffs, deciding do "one last run before they died". In the decades after the war, only a few dozen people lived in the former resort, initially subsisting by hunting and farming in the spring and summer. Eventually, however, a logging operation in the large area of surviving subalpine evergreen forests was established. By 2100, three sawmills has been constructed, using either relatively common microfusion generators or water power from the Rio Hondo, a tributary of the Rio Grande sourced in the mountains nearby. The settlement, now know simply as "The Valley" was the source of much of the wood used for fuel and construction timbers in Taos and other nearby towns such as Questa, and Arroyo Hondo, making the relatively small town, with a population of only about 100 relatively wealthy. Raiders were not a threat to the town itself because the only route in was boxed in by steep mountains slopes leading up to peaks that reached over 13,000 feet above sea level. When Caesar's Legion invaded the Taos area in 2273, advancing north from Santa Fe, The Valley provided some of the first warning, as the still-working ski lifts and a network of pre-war logging roads and hiking trails allowed sentries to be placed on the high peaks such as Wheeler Peak, the highest point in the pre-war state of New Mexico, with an elevation of over 13,000 feet. From the high peaks, which reached above the treeline, lookouts had an unobstructed view of the valley thousands of feet below, and, with the aid of binoculars and telescopes, could see the over 10,000-strong Legion formation making their way up the Rio Grande Valley towards Taos. After the town of Taos was overrun by Legion forces, about 200 refugees entered the valley and swelled the population of The Valley to about 300. When the Legion sent a messenger demanding their surrender, mayor of the village Maria Iglesias refused, stating that the Legion "may by the master of the valleys, but the mountains are our domain". Iglasias, along with a local hunter and militia leader, Jack Cartwright developed a plan to use the terrain, which boxed the Legion into a single predictable path, as well as the slow speed of their large numbers of foot soldiers against them, making use of a cache of pre-war explosives originally used for controlled triggering of avalanches. The plan was to rig a slope above the road with dynamite creating a rock fall on the advancing Legion troops. Cartwright, who had extensive knowledge of the area, had located an ideal spot for the trap, a large cliff directly above the road into the Valley, with a scree slope of loose rocks and earth above it. Ambush On June 2nd, 2273, a group of Valley Militia lead by hunter and woodsman Jack Cartwright, who was intimately familiar with the backcountry of the mountains around the Valley placed remotely detonated explosives on the scree slope above a cliff on the north side of the only road into The Valley, pre-war State Road 150. On the morning of June 9th, 2273, a column of 500 Legionaries left Taos heading north, and were observed by lookouts on the high peaks above the Valley. The militia of was mobilized, with most of their number placing themselves at a roadblock about 500 meters northeast of the ambush point. A small number of Valley militia, including Cartwright and a number of skilled marksmen hiked into the mountain slopes directly across from the explosive charges, at distances of between about 300 and 800 meters from the road. At 1246 hours on June 9th, the charges were activated as the center of the Legion forces crossed the area in front of the cliff. The explosion triggered a landslide that dropped hundreds of tons of rock, earth, and debris on the Legion center of the Legion formation. The landslide killed between 150 and 200 Legionaries. As soon as the dust of the landslide settled, the militia on the hillside opened fire. The militia group on the slopes were armed mostly with scoped hunting rifles, though some had true sniper rifles such as the DKS-501 and the .50 caliber PGM Hecate, as well as at least two AER-9 laser rifles acquired from trade with the ghouls of the Reservation (former Los Alamos). Also present on the slopes were two light machine guns and a M79 grenade launcher to provide suppressing fire. As soon as the ambush began, the of militia on the roadblock to the northeast engaged the 40 or so surviving Legionaries that were on the opposite side of the debris pile. The disorganized Legionaries that survived the ambush were quickly cut down to a man by gunfire from the militia from both the slopes and further up the road. Dozens more Legionaries were killed by the gunfire. Within five minutes after the initial ambush, the surviving Legionaries had been routed and retreated down back down the road. After the Legion forces failed to return for an hour, the Valley militia sent out scavenging parties to collect any salvageable weapons, ammunition, and supplies from the dead Legionaries. While much of their materiel was destroyed in the battle, the miltia nonetheless managed to collect over 60 firearms of varying types and at least 1000 rounds of ammunition, as well as other supplies. Aftermath When the 254 surviving Legionaries returned from the defeat, Adrius immediately ordered that the survivors be decimated for their failure. In addition, the highest-ranking surviving officer was crucified in the center of Taos as warning to passing columns of troops of the price of failure. In spite of the defeat, Adrius did not order another attack, instead, much as he did with the Reservation, he ordered Legion troops to blockade the road into The Valley, hoping to starve the residents out. Even as the towns of Cimarron and Red River in the valley to the north fell in the coming year, the residents of the Valley stubbornly refused to surrender, surviving by hunting and subsistence farming, as well as raiding Legion patrols. While times were tough, and the suffered significant casualties from the elements during the winter, there remained over 200 holdouts in the Valley when the force of the NCR and newly created Republic of New Mexico liberated the town of Taos in 2283. One of the most unusual effects of the Battle of the Rio Hondo, however, was the pile of debris from the landslide in the ambush, which dammed the Rio Hondo, creating a small lake in the valley, which completely blocked off the road, making the various trails in on the mountainside the only way out of the valley. This lake, which became known as "Dynamite Lake". While water from the river quickly carved a small natural "spillway" in the debris dam, allowing continued streamflow, thanks to efforts by the residents of The Valley to reinforce the dam to the best of their ability for use as an irrigation and fishing pond, "Dynamite Lake" continued to exist for over 30 years. During an unusually heavy summer rainy season in 2306, however, the debris dam gave way on the night of July 22nd, 2306, sending a flow of water and debris rushing down the Rio Hondo valley into the small towns of Valdez and Arroyo Hondo as it rushed towards the Rio Grande. This flood killed 21 people and an unknown number of livestock, and destroyed 32 structures (not all of which were inhabited). Category:Battles Category:Events